The Best Career Advice I Ever Received

While there are people all around you giving you advice for every different area of your life, it can be difficult to know who to trust and what advice to heed. Though each of these people, I am sure, is trying to be helpful and giving you their advice out of love, it may not be exactly what you need at that moment.

Just last year, I had to make a very difficult and important career decision. I could either stay at my current job or move to be with my family two hours away and start all over. To some, it would have been an easy decision: stay put. Stay in the place that offers you financial security, stability, and comfort. To others, the opposite would be their choice: family first, always.

Lauren Jolly Photography

I sought counsel from many different people: family, friends, industry professionals. I got many different answers, as you can imagine. Some told me that my family, no matter how far away I live from them, we will always be there for me. That I should focus on a career that I enjoy, have excelled at, and that would allow me to grow. They told me to stay in the house I just bought because there was a risk of losing money if I tried to sell it after only one year.

The one person that I found the best advice from is (drumroll please) my mom. I know, I know: I should have gone to her first and ignored everyone else! But what she told me ultimately shaped my decision (and made it a pretty easy one). She told me that, regardless of what looks like the right (or even sensible) answer to anyone else, may not be best for me. She told me I needed to do what would make me happy, because there is far more to life than just money.

Though it wasn’t a decision I took lightly, I decided quickly where I needed to be after that conversation with my mom. I put my house up for sale, put in my notice with work, and started packing. I was headed to Winston-Salem to live closer to my sister, brother-in-law, and sweet little nephew. Once I got to Winston, I needed to find a job. Within just a few weeks, I was introduced to Becca, who, luck would have it, was currently hiring. The rest, as they say, is history.

While this isn’t the blog post some of you might have been expecting after reading the title, I think it is advice we could all use. This is sound advice that is pertinent in any area of life where you need counsel. So whatever type of advice you need, you should first make sure that you are doing what makes you happy, regardless of what makes the most sense to an outside spectator.

- Kristin